First To Third: Chalk Series On Tap & What To Do With The Dodgers

The weekend series is usually reserved for at least a few marquee matchups, and usually have a couple of division rivals within them, however, this weekend is a bit different. This weekend on the surface looks to feature a bunch of mismatches, to be honest, so you may have to utilize that parlay button if you hope to invest in the series market, so let’s take a look.

Houston (-495) Vs. Texas (+395)

Cleveland (-460) Vs. Kansas City (+360)

New York Yankees (-400) Vs. Oakland

Boston (-170) Vs. Toronto (+150)

You can rock the chalk with some parlays or take a stab at the underdog, however, these teams are favored this widely for a reason, as they have the pitching advantages as well. Take a little round robin action on the favorites, especially with Boston coming off a series lost and New York being the hottest team in Baseball.

2. Something Has To Change

In something of a bizarre twist of fate, New York and Boston have the two best records in Major League Baseball, however, one of those two teams may end up playing in a one-game wild card to end the season. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves but something has to change this format if that does come to fruition and the records hold.

I’ve stated from the beginning, Boston is much more equipped to handle the one-game wild card scenario than New York due to the fact that they have a true “Ace” in Chris Sale, although Severino is settling into that role nicely. Look, both teams are great, and since the promotion of Gleyber Torres they are 16-2. I really think they could benefit from a true “ace” edition at the deadline (who couldn’t?) but these two teams are going to battle it out all season, as far as a buy/sell, wait until a slump from either team and buy if you aren’t holding a pre-season position.

It’s actually not even limited to Boston and New York as the same thing could happen to LA and Houston. Assuming either team holds the division, could you imagine having to deal with Justin Verlander Vs. Chris Sale in a one-game wild-card scenario for the right to even get into the playoffs? Parody is a real thing in Major League Baseball and they need to take advantage of it by making it a three-game series.

What To Do?

In truth, the AL wild card is going to come down to four teams all year, throw the rest out. LA, Houston, New York, and Boston. You can place a future on all of them and know you will only lose out on one when one team loses the AL Wild Card game.

3. I’m Sticking A Fork in L.A…Until The Second Half

I’ve talked about LA for what seems like issue after issue of First To Third because I think that in this game, buying low is absolutely everything, but I can’t do it anymore. I’ve already bought out of some LA positions by buying Diamondback futures, and forget about the day to day market of the overpriced Dodgers…for now.

Here’s the deal, Walker Beuhler is special, Justin Turner is still hurt, Julio Urias and Clayton Kershaw are coming back-while Corey Seager is not. They just dropped the opening game of their series to Cincinnati as a -400 series favorite, and things look grim. I’m buying one last future on L at the bottom of the market and I’m officially sticking a fork in them, I know what you’re thinking, why would I buy another piece of a team I’m declaring dead?

They’re not dead, they’re just a walking MASH unit right now. Justin Turner really is the key here, along with a rotation that over the second half of the season that could look like this: Kershaw, Wood, Urias, Beuhler, and Hill. Forget about Maeda and Ryu, that’s a top 5 rotation. The offense will get going and LA has the pockets to make something happen at the deadline, if they want to move Beuhler, the best available player on the market would be in LA at the deadline.

Preseason they were 3/1 to win The World Series. They are now 14/1 and 8/1 for The National League. I’m buying a small piece of both and we’re not going to talk about them again.

A jack of all trades, Christian got his start in the gambling industry using a model to predict players performance in daily fantasy sports. Eventually, he used that same model to cross over into NFL handicapping, specifically the prop market and honed his craft enough to cross over from player projections into every aspect of sports Handicapping. He then made the full time move to Las Vegas to become a professional sports handicapper, utilizing his knowledge of all sports including NFL, NCAA, NBA, UFC, and MLB. He's currently the resident #DFS expert on The Sports Gambling Podcast as well as managing editor.